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PDF versionMonk's story gives new reason for death penalty opposition
by Bill Tammeus on Aug. 24, 2011
Arguments against capital punishment come in many forms.
When I was a columnist and editorial writer for The Kansas City Star I would take almost any opportunity to express our editorial board’s long-held opposition to the death penalty by writing impassioned editorials urging citizens not to let their government sink to the moral level of common criminals by killing people to keep them from killing people.
I have just read much more effective testimony against capital punishment by Catholic priest and Trappist monk W. Paul Jones in his soon-to-be-released book, A Different Kind of Cell: The Story of a Murderer Who Became a Monk.
It’s persuasive because it’s a true story about Clayton A. Fountain, once considered the most dangerous man in the federal prison system, a man who, as St. Joseph Sr. Helen Prejean writes in the forward to this book, “proudly confessed five brutal and intentional murders.”
It’s effective because it tells how the author and others worked to redeem this vicious killer’s wasted life.
And it’s a devastating argument against the death penalty because if Fountain could be rehabilitated -- so much so that he became a well-educated, articulate monk -- it’s foolish to give up on anyone by resorting to execution.
There are, of course, many other reasons to oppose capital punishment -- including the possibility that the one convicted is, in fact, innocent. But Christianity is all about redemption, even in the face of ridiculous odds. And the odds against Clayton Fountain were, in fact, ridiculous.
Because four of the five people Fountain murdered were in prison with him, authorities finally felt they had no choice but to create a special isolation cell for him. He was all alone with only a small food tray opening to the outside world.
Through the work of others, Jones eventually was drawn to the Fountain story and to Fountain himself. Jones would visit him under extraordinarily strict conditions. In the process he discovered a man with an intellectual and spiritual hunger -- who was a persistent dreamer. Jones and others began to imagine ways to support and encourage him as he spent the rest of his life in prison, there being no federal death penalty at the time Fountain committed his heinous crimes.
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Jones finally wound up -- even if a bit reluctantly at first -- being Fountain’s spiritual adviser for six years. In that time, Jones came to reaffirm how wrong-headed the death penalty is. Even though it didn’t apply to Fountain, had it been in effect for him it would have precluded the possibility of him repenting of his past and becoming an educated writer, prayer warrior and advocate for others.
Eventually Jones helped convince the abbot at his monastery in southern Missouri to accept Clayton Fountain as a “Family Brother,” or monk, even though Fountain remained in his federally provided cell, which was designated as his hermitage.
But no sooner had this been accomplished than Fountain died in prison, officially of “unknown causes,” but apparently of natural causes. It was a terrible blow to Jones, to his monastic community and to Fountain’s family.
Jones writes: “Having walked the last nine years of Clayton’s pilgrimage with him, I have no choice but to stand resolutely against the death penalty -- for anyone, anytime, anywhere. His reversal makes it clear to me that the execution of any human being for any reason is the insolent behavior of humans playing god, imposing limits on the God of Infinite Mercy.”
This new book does not argue that the Clayton Fountains in our prisons should be released into either the general prison population or into the world outside of prison. There are good and sufficient reasons to keep some people behind bars.
But it does challenge us anew to find ways to oppose the death penalty wherever we see it. And that is reason enough to hope A Different Kind of Cell finds a wide audience.
[Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog for The Star's Web site and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust. E-mail him at wtammeus@kc.rr.com.]
The death penalty has always
The death penalty has always been about revenge, and the false notion that a revenge killing will somehow bring with it healing and closure. Some Christian fundamentalists use the Old Testament scriptures to 'proof-text' their justification for revenge masquerading as justice. The fact is that revenge of any sort does more damage to the person(s) seeking revenge, and it won't undo the original wrong done. It is an absolute denial of the gospel's redemption message for both victim and perpetrator.
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In the USA our legal system disproportionately metes out capital punishment to the poor and minorities whose state supplied "legal counsel" are overworked and underpaid public defenders who often fail to provide quality case investigation, jury selection and defense of the accused. By the time of execution the state actually spends significantly more money via mandated and ineffective appeals than if the convicted person were incarcerated securely for life. Some states have become so sloppy with their execution procedures that the botched process has become little more than an exercise in gruesome cruelty.
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The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with the majority being non-violent offenders, and many of them doing hard-time for minor offenses after being caught up in distinctly unjust "three strikes" state laws. The resulting massive over-crowding then leads to actual violent offenders being released without serving their "life" sentences in some cases. The sad truth is that in our so-called "Christian nation" we are more interested in, and willing to taxpayer fund, punishment and revenge (fear driven) than in rehabilitation and redemption (gospel love driven). Some states are now opting to turn their "correctional system"/prisons over the private entities seeking to profit from punishment and revenge — which is yet another example of the dark side of unbridled capitalism which profits on the misery of others — and of course, the politicians involved will get their corporate campaign cash kick-back.
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Thank you, Bill, for sharing this story with us. Revenge is not justice — and without true justice we will never have peace and be able to truly receive redemption for ourselves and others.
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Johnny is a serial rapist and
Johnny is a serial rapist and murderer. Please explain how you would rehabilitate and redeem him. We'll all be glad to put your plan into effect.
Why don't you read the book
Why don't you read the book reviewed here; you would likely get some very good suggestions, explanations, even a plan.
Thank you an excellent post.
Thank you an excellent post. Your description and analysis, especially the third paragraph, exude truth.
I could not agree with you
I could not agree with you more, Aileen. So many people who call themselves "Christians" are vengeful, bloodthirsty and don't believe that repentance and regeneration are possible. I'd like to have it explained to me how this squares with Christ's teachings.
What about the 4 men Clayton
What about the 4 men Clayton killed in prison?
What happened to their chances at redemption?
To simply propose abolishing the death penalty, as horrible as it is, is a feel-good and easy way out.
There is so much more to consider, this touches on a great many questions indeed.
Perhaps this is where we should turn to Catholic Tradition, which I am sure Mr. Tammeus values, though a Protestant (like myself).
I am as perplexed as anyone about all this.
As a suicide survivor I feel particularly grateful to Christ. I lived and later came to welcome Him into my life. Had God let me die when I wished to (and He had plenty of good reasons to do so), it would have taken a very large portion of His Mercy to save me from an unexpected and more permanent death.
W whines: "To simply propose
W whines: "To simply propose abolishing the death penalty, as horrible as it is, is a feel-good and easy way out."
To abolish the death penalty is a requirement of our Faith, and normative to our orthopraxis.
Jesus says free the prisoners.
Even jolly old wojo declared he can see no situation in modern society which justifies its application any longer, despite what anglo Texans uphold as "Christian." Heck, they take football as a sacramental, along with lynching other races in human sacrifice
It's very troubling and
It's very troubling and difficult subject and calls for prayer and deep self-examination of conscience. The fact that Christians are still debating it after 2000 years attests to that.
The death penalty is directly related to 'self-defense'.
If you would kill in self-defense or the defense of innocent beings, then you cannot justifiably call for the elimination of the death penalty.
So, where do you stand? Would you stand by and allow rape or torture of innocents, genocide and wholesale suffering?
Now, if I were a good Tolstoyan or a 'womb to tomb" pacifist - yes, I would have a credibility, albeit a wild one,in my opposition to the death penalty.
But if I would pick up a gun in defense of life, I cannot oppose the death penalty.
When exactly did 'abolishing the death penalty' become a 'requirement of our Faith'? What of the vaunted 'Tradition"?
"Augustine recognized the death penalty as a means of deterring the wicked and protecting the innocent. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas reaffirmed this position.
The new Catechism of the Catholic Church reflects this tradition, stating that the death penalty is possible in cases of extreme gravity."
http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0195.asp
a few Novembers ago the print
a few Novembers ago the print edition of the National Catholic Reporter, as we subscribers know, reported the head of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace declaring the death Penalty homicide.
Wojtyla himself admitted publicly he could no longer find any legitimate reason for its execution.
You cannot document two millenia of our Church defending the death penalty; in fact we were the ones getting killed.
Jesus received a death sentence, and never gave one.
The death penalty is a sin, and a grievous sin, and anyone who purports to have a pro-life position supports the death penalty with any credibility. You cannot be both pro-life and pro-death penalty.
You cannot claim both to sustain life and to kill the living.
"The death penalty is a sin,
"The death penalty is a sin, and a grievous sin, and anyone who purports to have a pro-life position supports the death penalty with any credibility."
So then God sanctioned sin in Gen 9:6 and Ex 21:12, and therefore, cannot be considered pro-life. Also, the Catholic Church has then allowed the state's right to commit sin. Interesting...
There is a progression in
There is a progression in revelation and, for the Christian, the teaching of Christ takes precedence over the teaching of the Torah. Please read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. As for the Catholic teaching, yes, in the past that was the teaching but, as pointed out in other posts, that too has changed. Unfortunately, not enough energy has been expended in making that point known.
How exactly is quoting the
How exactly is quoting the old testament' the Torah? For a person to believe God and God's word, they do not have to follow the Christian faith do they? To believe that KRST was YHWH's 'son does not mean you have to follow all the man-written anecdotes in the 'new testament' does it?
:"You cannot document two
:"You cannot document two millenia of our Church defending the death penalty; in fact we were the ones getting killed.":
Let's see... Technically correct, but let's not lose sight of reality. In the first few hundred years (up until Constantine), yes. Christians were running away from persecutors. Come the Middle Ages though, and all the way to about the 19th Century, the Church used the State to carry out executions. They thought the Death Penalty was just dandy. Used it to kill all kinds of people -- "Heretics" (tons of mutual Catholic and Protestant killing, everyone killing women accused of witchcraft, killing of Jews for being Jewish, ditto of Muslims in the lands that had been "reconquered" by Spain in 1492), torture and killing of those who supported the French Revolution in those lands where the Catholic Church was still ascendant, Native People of the Americas... The list is seemingly endless.
For those who will doubtless remind me that missionaries were often killed by those whom they sought to convert -- sure. Absolutely correct. On every continent. Now compare the number of natives that we the colonizing powers killed versus the number of Missionaries or Christians killed by "natives". Not even close. These natives were potential targets of "evangelization", which was automatically followed by genocide and economic exploitation. In some cases, though not all, a case could be made that the targets of said evangelization were simply defending their lives and culture. TODAY, there has been a good deal more persecution of Christians generally. I think we don't deal with it enough.
Let's face it folks... No one's hands are clean on this one. To pull out a technicality and say they didn't really do it, the State did it is just disingenuous. At times in European history those were practically indistinguishable.
At the same time, we need to remember the position on abortion was usually fairly flexible until relatively recently. Family size was frequently regulated by illegal abortion or abandonment of children (exposure to the elements so they would die, or leaving them with charitable religious) - yes even in Europe. Illegitimacy was similarly dealt with. Neither of those acts was penalized by excommunication, and the penitentials of various periods reflect the relatively low importance given to the "sin" of abortion at various times in history.
We moderns can pat ourselves on the back about how noble we are, and the Church can bleat about its seamless garment, but this is a VERY recent phenomenon. As late as the 1950's the Church was totally OK (in practice, even if doctrine did not necessarily support it) with the death penalty and rarely challenged any authority for applying it. For most of the history of the Church they were quite satisfied with torture and death for those they considered "heretics" or somehow a threat to "Christendom" -- or just political rivals.
--Andy Jo--
were they not captive held in
were they not captive held in prison unjustly and purposefully incompetently, they would still be alive.
Steven: Some good points.
Steven:
Some good points. But as Stan Hauerwas once said to me, only God has sovereignty over life and death. Stan and others are therefore womb to tomb pro lifers. We just have no right to do it since the danger is not immediate to society and can be handled with incarceration.
As far as a tooth for a tooth - "what about the five that he killed..." Jesus retined that teaching and showed us His Father's will.
Best J
Please explain how one can be
Please explain how one can be a suicide survivor. I can understand how someone can survive a half-hearted suicide attempt, but unless you jump off a tall building and live, or stick a loaded weapon in your mnoputh, aim at your brain and pull the trigger, how is anyone a survivor of 'suicide' which be definition is taking one's own life.
similar for those not tied
similar for those not tied into ex ecclesia non est salus is the interesting and inspiring DVD Dhamma Brothers (2008), especially how enforced Christianity nearly put an end to their redemption.
see also
Razor-Wire Dharma: A Buddhist Life in Prison
Sitting Inside: Buddhist Practice in America's Prisons
Wilderness and Razor Wire
or, above all, any book by the Reverend Father John Dear SJ
Stop the death penalty, as our Church demands.
Stop Rick Perry before he kills again, with hundreds already notched into his gun stock.
Compelling story Bill. I will
Compelling story Bill. I will have to track down the book.
Tammy chooses an extreme case
Tammy chooses an extreme case to dodge the fact Jesus tells us to free the prisoners.
This case proves our correctional institutions correct nothing, but create anti-social monsters. We have no rehabilitation, only guaranteed recidivism to keep the pens in business, and overstuffed as in California and Arizona with nonviolent people no threat to anyone, let alone society, nor to themselves until in prison they learn to profit from crime and to enter the criminal network.
Free the prisoners.
TO know what our prisons are really all about read carefully Susan McDougall's eloquent The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk: Why I Refused to Testify Against the Clintons and What I Learned in Jail about who she was tortured and confined and caused irreparable physical and psychological damage for refusing to dance for a vindictive GOP prosecutor.
I assume that everyone is
I assume that everyone is prepared to kick in the billions it would take to rehabilitate criminals? The estimated cost for California alone would be $700 billion over the next ten years. That's approximately $20,000 for every man, woman, and child, or $80,000 for a family of four. Please send only cashier's checks, folks. I suspect some of you would stop payment when you saw what your money purchased, i.e., the state trying to effect rehabilitation of hardened criminals. In the alternative, we can direct all the released convicts to your homes. Please send directions and be sure to show them where your children sleep. - Margaret
Death penalty application
Death penalty application costs more than incarceration and rehabilitation (or even life without parole) if you include incarceration time as well as prosecutorial and court time (for appeals), all the paperwork and filings that go with them, and assorted other activities supposedly around having some assurance that the guy or gal who "did it" will be the one put to death. I say supposedly because these efforts are typically not greeted with enthusiasm by prosecutors.
The only way to reduce that expense is to just chuck the person into death row just after the sentencing and executing him/her forthwith. Of course, there's a problem. What if the person is factually innocent? What if it is your son, daughter, husband, father, mother...? Are you comfortable with that possibility?
You are entitled to be comfortable with the execution of the innocent, but I am happy that most of society is not. Hence, the additional cost of a death penalty conviction is -- de facto -- accepted by society as a price that is paid for exacting this revenge. Because it is not a deterrent (Texas has been stacking up the dead like cordwood and their murder rates keep getting worse), it is revenge.
--Andy Jo--
Kelleher, You opined: "I
Kelleher,
You opined: "I assume that everyone is prepared to kick in the billions it would take to rehabilitate criminals"?
The Repubs and the pope would be willing to pay for incarceration, wouldn't they?
Methinks, they would, because they gain great profits from their prison system. Spending great amounts of taxpayer dollars is their goal just as long as it benefits them. Eg, Corporate welfare, wealthy welfare, wars and Reagan Trickle-down economics and the resultant crises. They want to keep everyone's grandmas in hospital Intensive Care wards at 10,000 per day for up to six months. They and the pope said so!!! We all heard them speak thusly!!! So loosen up on your purse and be prapared to pay more taxes.
Of course we also know that keeping people in prison for the war on drugs for marijuana really does no good. In fact the only "benefits" that arise from our prison system is to help the imprisoned become better criminals. But Rethuglicans are great at stopping social justice(Social Conservatives) and creating ever more criminals with strategies that do not work, but are profitable. As we all know, they worship profit above all else!!!
Also being ideologues, like the popes, they NEVER pay any attention to the facts or to scientific findings. MORE Galileo, anyone??? Those pesky facts are just too liberal, too European and too French for the Repubs and the Religious Right. Do you not agree???
Another example---
The Repubs do not allow our Northern farmers to grow Hemp, a product that is easy to grow and uses no fertilizer. They say we actually they must only grow cotton. So we import almost all of the Hemp we need. Why? They reason that Hemp has THC, the active ingredient in Marijuana, is also in Hemp. Horrors! Hemp competes with water sucking cotton. Hemp needs very little water and can be grown by Northern farmers while cotton is grown by southern Repub farmers.
However, to get high from Hemp, one must smoke a Hemp cigarette that is as big as a telephone pole.That's not a liberal fact, it's just a true fact.
So, keep on with that Repub thinking, it works so well.
BTW, Imprisonment and active regulations work with Repub white collar criminals. True, it didn't work with Ronald Reagan(Bush 41 and Oliver North) and his Iran-Contra drug selling debacle. That brought us Iran. But then he was covered and protected by Pope JPII, his friend. Both were killing for democracy, Capitalism and the popes Right Wing religion. Birds of a feather...
There's a great way to start
There's a great way to start on the road to Justice that will cost us nothing. Get rid of the absurd drug laws whose enforcement has stuffed our jails literally to the breaking point.
California is now turning
California is now turning people free because of budgetary constraints and because of court order due to massive overcrowding. The Reaganite Three-strikes-and-your-out policy (in which a traffic violation can lead to life imprisonment) and the immigration sweeps have stacked prisoners three high in areas never intended for occupation, and tripled the occupancy of prisons, bringing outcries form human rights organizations. These are no longer prisons; they are the belly of the slave ships. They are concentration camps, overcrowded and unsanitary and over stuffed by Republican policy impressing one another.
Let the people free.
As the court order now stands.
Franly,I find myself unmoved
Franly,I find myself unmoved by Mr.Tammeus'hand-wringing over this issue,especially since Foountain's victims,"so proudly and intentionly murdered",were barely worth Tammeus'time.Tell me Mr.Tammeus,have you visited any of Fountain's victims'families? Somehow I rather doubt it.At any rate,I think a few things should be made clear.Opposition to the death penalty always sounds better in the abstract than the concrete; That whole"It wasn't my loved one he (or she) murdered,so..." Indeed.You all would well to remember this:The state is not an instrument for redemption,nor is required to offer forgiveness! We already have a Redeemer.As for you catholics who are honest enough to admit you hate the Bible, take a deep breath.Don't try to "outgod" God; you just sound silly.(You too,Tammeus.) Romans 13th chapter is clear as to the state's duties.We all of us should work to insure no innocent person is unjustly executed, but when a guilty person runs afoul of the state...there it is.Last word: Jesus said to visit the prisoners,not free them, and Almighty God has no problem with the death penalty.Remember Hell?
Excellent points, Bill and
Excellent points, Bill and Aileen USA!
"Visiting the imprisoned". So needed.
Wonderful article, and wonderful comment by Aileen USA.
CALIFORNIA, AND THE UNITED STATES:
The information about the cruel conditions in many American prisons is suppressed. With the current hunger strike of prisoners, and a lot of prisoners fasting in solidarity with them in other prisons--WE NEED TO HEAR THEIR PLEA.
If prisoners who have lost so much, are willing to give up food for long periods of time--that message reaches me. That definitely touches MY heart.
We need to be educated about the abuse of people within our American prison systems. In many prison systems, prisoners are forced to "rat", and possibly even make up "ratting" stories, as their only route out of SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.
LORD JESUS CHRIST, YOU WHO WERE A PRISONER, help us take action for prisoners. Help us respond to the unheard cries of
prisoners, and families of prisoners. Help us help people out of every kind of prison, from physical, to discriminatory, to shaming. Amen
"The last shall first." In the American prison system, if there is authentic conversion, STILL the taxpayers pay to punish someone who has changed, and who wants to have a new chance.
Jesus gave the woman who was going to be stoned to death, a new chance.
Thank you for reminding us
Thank you for reminding us how difficult it is to be a Christian and to be faithful in respecting life at all stages. When Cardinal Bernadin gave us the image of: THE SEAMLESS GARMENT, he challegened all disciples to respect life; I am proud to have been part of Rev. Paul Jones' life when our paths crossed when he was a teacher at St. Paul Methodist Church. Paul is never one to back away from the difficult challenges of Chritianity and his voice for justice and peace continues to offer hope and peace for all who face the call to be disciple every day.
There are many moving stories
There are many moving stories as to why we should abolish the death penalty. This is one of them. And there are many well-reasoned ones why we should maintain it. None-the-less, as followers of Christ, we are called to show mercy, to forgive and to not Kill. So, for all that is put forth by so many on this subject, I need to know how a Christian, who follows the 10 commandants and the directives of Christ, builds an argument for keeping the death penalty. I have yet come across one that makes sense in light of the faith we claim to follow.
Yes, that is the issue evevy
Yes, that is the issue evevy Christian has to consider when developing a position; how does the issue relate to the Gospel´s directives. However, there seems to be so many who are able to divorce this from their arguments as if it has no relation.
I wonder what the monk's view
I wonder what the monk's view is on Ted Bundy, executed at Florida State Prison in 1989, "a new creation in Christ".
His final interview was with Dr James Dobson, there was no reprieve in sight for him and he didn't expect it, and died in the electric chair.
I suppose there was no fanfare there because Dobson wasn't a monk.
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